-esque

SHARDZ

FOREWARD

Allow me to set the scene … in 2019, almost a year after the release of WARMTH, I got the urge to craft another project. I was working retail at my first job on the insistence of my parents, who had all but disowned me for deciding not to go to college. My decision to opt out of higher education added more tension to my already-strained relationship with my mother, who had lost all trust in me after I got caught drinking at a party my senior year. Still living with my parents and having no real living expenses, I allocated the bulk of my earnings to herb and wax. I used tree to cope with the isolation of my home life and the loneliness of being the only one of my friends in pursuit of something other than a degree. When I wasn’t alone, I was with my friends having a college experience by proxy, having all kinds of troublesome fun.

Once upon a bloody nose, I took a photo that looked like the perfect cover for a project that could speak to the highs and lows of my latter teen years. I started with the cover and conceptualized the album from there. Sonically, I was inspired by IDLSIDGO (“Grief” in particular), [sLUms], and a plethora of indie rock artists. In stark contrast to the bar-heavy writing on WARMTH, I took a more minimalist approach and rapped in a slow, monotone cadence representative of the hazy state I found myself in most of those days. I experimented with new production and mixing approaches, but I was still largely unstudied in engineering and just a fresher, less-seasoned artist. I have nothing to say about the quality of this project other than, welp, it’s old. It is what it is, and I’m not going to take the time to remix it at this point. There’s too much new shit to focus on. It’s bad enough that I held onto this for so long. I don’t remember exactly why I didn’t drop this, but I think I was either too much of a perfectionist or, more likely, too scared of how it would be received. That being said, I’m still proud of this project, and it still holds a special place in my heart. I love the production on this project. If nothing else, the beats have aged well. I was reminded of this project now as I find myself at the end of a 7 year sobriety cycle that (I hope) I’ve gone through enough times to commit to breaking. It’s kind of scary looking back in my mid-20s realizing I was pretty much just a kid having the experience documented on this album. If I could interact with that younger version of myself now, I’d give him a big hug and some words of affirmation. I think that’s all he really needed. Now, as I Humpty Dumpty myself back together again, I present to you RECKLESS ABANDON.

Your friend, confidant, co-conspirator,

Clyde

SHARDZ